Get Power and Give it Away

 Mark 10:35-45 Stewardship October 17, 2021

 

Henri Nouwen who was a wonderful

priest and author wrote a very wise thing

"The long painful history of the church

is the history of people ever and again tempted

to choose power over love, control over the cross,

being the leader over being led by God."

 

This has been the churches temptation

and the people of Christ have given into it:

the Spanish Inquisition,

Early Calvinism, burning people at the stake,  

even Luther gave into this temptation:

when he was asked what to do about the peasant uprising

he told the governors that they had the right 

and even the obligation to kill those peasants outright, and they did.

 
Lots of Christians today are in power in the US

and many of them use it to advance their ideologies

or for their own gain or for the benefit of other rich people.

We often chose control over the cross.

Power over love.

There are endless examples of Christians giving into this temptation.

And this was James and John’s temptation too.

 

Jesus has just told the disciples that he’s going to be

arrested, tortured and killed by the authorities

like he does a few times in Mark’s gospel.

And James and John, the Sons of Thunder,

come up to Jesus and ask him

if Jesus can promise them the corner

office and the best parking spaces in heaven.

 

They hear about Jesus great sacrifice death and resurrection

and they don’t think about the implications for the world,

or the implications for Jesus, or how they need to carry their

own cross (like Jesus told them they did.)

They only thought about their own position and claiming

the power for themselves in the afterlife.

 

It might seem like a small, harmless request,

but that’s how these temptations work.

Small harmless gains, that eventually lead to bigger ones.

 

The greatest temptation for every leader,

especially leaders who work for the public good

and for the oppressed is the temptation to only

work for their own success and comfort.

 

At some point in any great leader’s life,

The establishment always offers something that is hard to refuse.

Just like Jesus was tempted in the wilderness

good are offered that high paying job,

the safety of them and their family,

the promise of temporary riches.

And many of them take it and the public looses them.

 

In Martin Luther King’s biography it recounts

that in 1962, at a particularly stressful

and hopeless time early in the civil rights movement,

Martin Luther King was offered a job as

“Chief Impresario and Around the World Lecturer“

for the Sol Hurok agency,

a kind of world-wide talent agency.

He was guaranteed a salary of $100,000 a year

Which was a ton of money in 1962.

  

After threats to his family, time in jail

and the long road ahead, this was very tempting to him.

The biographer said he thought for a long time

about it, but he obviously refused and

recommitted to the movement he was called to.

That would lead to the break down of legal segregation

and would eventually lead to his murder in April 1968.

 

The devil would love it if he had taken the secure path.

Others who have been called to do good for others

have given in to that path.

 

The devil would love nothing more

than if we hoarded every bit of money, success, and power

for ourselves and only used it for our own comfort.

But Jesus says today that’s not the way to life.

That’s not the way to greatness in God’s kingdom.

The way to real greatness is to be a servant to others.

The real path to power is to share the power we have.

 

When we think of Mother Theresa,

we mostly think of her in the streets and slums

working with the poorest people in India.

But her work made her famous and her fame made her powerful.

 

Later on in life, when she needed more funding for her causes,

she would get on a plane, fly first class,

assemble a meeting of high-powered CEO’s

and executives and sit down in a chair in their conference room

look them in the eye and tell them,

“I need your money to do my work.“

And when they would offer her some

she would say, “No, that’s not enough. I’ll wait.“

That’s power. But it’s power for the sake of others

 

It’s stewardship month.

Stewardship is about how we care for what we’ve been given.

And these Gospel readings are about sharing.

Sharing what we’ve been given.

 

Last week, the rich man was told to let go of

his possessions and give them away,

and this week Jesus tells us to

give away our power for the good of others

 

Now some of us will probably say that we don’t feel

particularly powerful.

We’re not politicians, we don’t hold offices.

We’re not Mother Theresa, we’re not Martin Luther King.

We don’t have fame or notoriety. But each of us has power.

 

Most of us in here are white, that comes with

some automatic power in this country.

Many of us have accumulated some wealth.

We know how to get around many of the bureaucracies

and systems in this country, and that gives us power.

We have some free time. That gives us power.

We have options we’re not stuck in our situation.

That gives us power.

We can gather with other people

to work for change, and people will listen to us.

All these things give us power.

 

Power is a gift to us, it is an opportunity.

Power is a useful thing.

We’re not asked to shirk it off or refuse it.

We’re asked to take it and use it – for the good of others.

As Christians, we don’t need to under-achieve.

We don’t need to be door-mats.

There is no shame in being strong and powerful.

But for followers of Jesus, this power

comes with a responsibility and a call.

 

Christians can be business owners and bosses.

But our greatness is found when we use

that power to make sure the employees

who work for us are being treated respectfully

and clients are being treated fairly.

Christians can be elected officials

But their greatness is found when they

use their power for the good of

all people, even those who can’t or don’t vote for them

and those who are not wealthy and don’t have power.

like homeless people or people who have been in prison.

 

And churches can be big and powerful

and full of people and have lots of power and influence

But our greatness as a church is only found when

we use that power and influence for others

to speak up against injustice, violence, war, economic imparity,

and all those things that oppress the least among us.

 

In God’s kingdom, real power is found in giving our power away.

 

The more we give away, the more we have.

The more power we give away,

the stronger we grow.

  

We follow someone who could have had

all the power in the world,

who could have lived in palaces,

who could have lived a pleasant life

with riches, and comfort, and personal, inner peace.

 

But instead he used his power for the good of others,

he used his power to heal, to forgive,

to set captives, like us,

free from our own prisons we make for ourselves.

Jesus could have had anything in the world,

but he gave his whole life for us.

 

The more he gave, the more powerful he was.

And Jesus used that power for the life of the world.